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Why is my war capacity so low?

Dumb countries keep attacking me despite the fact that I always beat them handily. I suspect that this is because my war capacity is always very low. For a long time, it was literally zero, despite the facts that I was +3 stable, maxed out to my land limits and at or near maxed out to my manpower, no revolt possbilities to speak of, world's best economy, fully westernized including military and government, world's best Land tech, etc. etc. etc.

I suspected at that point that it was because I had no navy (I had no core coastal province and so could not build a ship). So, as soon as I got a core coastal province, I started building ships as fast as possible (the next-to-largest kind, I forget what they're called as a class). Gradually my war capacity increased... all the way up to 9%. That was with my naval forcelimit maxed out, in addition to all the good stuff mentioned from when it was 0%.

So then I suspected that maybe it was because I didn't have large ships. So I started building them. Now I've got as many large ships as my new (significantly larger) naval forcelimit, plus all of the smaller ships from before. And all of the good stuff from 0%. Now I'm at 34%.

At this point I've probably got the best army in the world - there are bigger ones, like Ming, but mine is amongst the biggest and it has the best tech. And my navy is not insubstantial. I'm totally stable. I'm at or beyond my forcelimits. The only revolt risks to speak of are provinces that I'm occupying of dumbass countries that keep attacking me, and even those aren't too keen on revolting. I've got a ton of manpower. I've still got the world's best economy, and by a significantly larger margin than before.

Also, I remember that often some of my enemies were listed at 100% despite having no transports and no way to reach me via land, so if "as long as you can't reach your enemies, you will have low war capacity" is correct, it only applies to the player, or to non-Europeans, or something.

I'm not so sure that it's the war capacity that drives everyone to attack you. You are a primitive and those nations will always be high on the priority list for other nations. Even if they have no possibility to beat you. When I played the Cherokee i had wars with Denmark and Milan and other European minors when I was in a similar situation as you. They just have to save you from your primitive ways.

And about the war capacity. I have no idea how it works. As far as I see, that's a bullshit number...

High War Exhaustion greatly reduces War Capacity. So if you are ina perpetual struggle which leads to high WE it leads to lowerd WC which lets you look weaker to the AI leading to higher likelihood of attacks leading to a longer struggle.
(In this situation your own War Taxes are your greates enemy, not enemy armies)

If you are in multiple wars your troop numbers will probably be judged against the combined force of arms of your opponents, giving a lower number. It's also possible that your tax income is factored in (makes sense, after all it along with mp determines how many reserve regiments you can train), regardless of how much money you have stacked and how economical you are with the lives of your braves.

We read that in EU3 almost every region, certainly the colonial areas, have much lower base tax than Europe.

The perversity of the universe always tends toward a maximum — Finagle's Law
If it's worth fighting for, it's worth fighting dirty for — Murphy's Laws of Military Operations
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity — Hanlon's Razor
Never attribute to goodness that which is adequately explained by intelligence — My corolarry

It's not war exhaustion - I am typically near zero war exhaustion. I have been really high in war exhaustion once; decreasing it down to zero had no apparent effect on my war capacity (and I was maxed out in troops, stable, etc. the whole time - both with high and low war exhaustion).

It's not blockaded ports - my war capacity remains the same regardless of whether all or none of my ports are blockaded.

It's not that I'm being judged against the combined arms of my opponents across all wars - I have at one point faced twenty nations with hundreds of thousands of troops and hundreds of ships, and I have faced one nation with eight thousand troops and no ships, and everywhere in between; my war capacity was never anything but small.

But!

It suddenly shot up to 100%, in the middle of a war, and no nation has bothered me since. I don't know why. I have two theories:

(1) I think it happened several months or even a year after I bought the transports, but maybe my perception of time wasn't so great (due to lack of sleep (due to this damn game)), so possibly it was only a month, and it updated from 34% to 100% on the first day of the next month after having the transports.

(2) It happened while I had my fleet out doing things, transporting people around to invade overseas territories, blockading ports, looking for enemy ships to kill, etc., none of which I had done before. Previously leaving port was rare and brief, only to take the opportunity to take out very small enemy fleets that strayed too close to me and too far from their main fleet. Maybe the computer needed to be convinced that my ships were seaworthy.

(1) I think it happened several months or even a year after I bought the transports, but maybe my perception of time wasn't so great (due to lack of sleep (due to this damn game)), so possibly it was only a month, and it updated from 34% to 100% on the first day of the next month after having the transports.

(2) It happened while I had my fleet out doing things, transporting people around to invade overseas territories, blockading ports, looking for enemy ships to kill, etc., none of which I had done before. Previously leaving port was rare and brief, only to take the opportunity to take out very small enemy fleets that strayed too close to me and too far from their main fleet. Maybe the computer needed to be convinced that my ships were seaworthy.

More the first than the second. I ran into the same sort of scenario in my Cherokee game. Until you westernise and build enough of a fleet to be a threat to their core areas you are just a target and your war capacity reflected that. It basically says to the ai: you can't hurt them at all so there's no risk in attacking you (a few colonies are no big deal after all). Combine that with the anti-pagan CB and everyone and their brother will try to dogpile you no matter how many times you slaughter their landing parties. Once you can potentially reach their homeland the equation changes and they will mostly back off.